Without Words, Tidus Essay
by jemisard
Summary: This is the essay that Tidus got the award for in Without Words. A few people had expressed an interest in seeing what he wrote. Does not really stand alone.


The Most Important Person in my Life

The most important and influential person in my life is not Jecht. I know everyone expects me to write this essay about Jecht, but he was barely in my life.

Yes, he gave me a drive to be better and excel, but he never encouraged me in the few years he was actually with me.

Nor is the most influential person my mother. She died not long after Jecht was declared dead. I barely remember her now.

The most important person in my life is not my coach either. I owe him a lot, he gave me a chance when no one else would and saw me for myself, but it wasn't him who made me who I am today.

Instead, I'm going to write about this odd guy who rocked up in my life six months after my father died. He was a friend of my mother, though I don't know where he came from or how they knew each other. When she died, he took on the job of raising me, despite the fact that he barely knew me.

I think a lot of people have noticed him over the last nine years. I once jokingly called him my giant red shadow. He thought it was pretty funny, which just goes to show you what a weird guy he is. He doesn't laugh much, he doesn't really smile either, so it means a lot more to me when he does, because I know it's honest.

He's a big guy. He's over six feet tall, but it's not his height that makes him seem so intimidating. I don't know what it is, if it's the fact he's built like a brick or the sunglasses that cover his blind eye.

I still don't know how he got that scar, running down his face. When he's looking melancholic he sometimes traces it, as though it still pains him. I do know that it runs further down onto his chest somewhere.

The eye that is left is nearly always hidden by those god awful sunglasses. I've seen his eye though, I think he hides it because it looks so sad, like he's seen more of the world than he ever should have had to. Sometimes it makes me hurt to think about the pain that lurks just below the surface.

My guardian is more than just the way he looks. It's like the emotions he lives have defined his very physical self. He had long, long black hair when he arrived, but he cut the front off about five years back, and the fringe is streaked with grey and white now. It doesn't seem fair; he's only in his early thirties. I suspect that I put a lot of those grey hairs in there.

He has a big sword, taller than I am, hanging over his bed. I've seen him use it in training, when I was younger he would warm up by bench pressing me. I think he could probably still pick me up and bench press me, but he thinks it's inappropriate now that I'm sixteen.

Every time I see that sword, I'm reminded of just how strong he actually is. The same hands that nursed my scrapes and bruises and patted me awkwardly when I was crying over my mother's death are hands that have wielded a blade designed only to kill. Yet I was never scared of his strength.

That's what has made my guardian so important to me. I know I was a nightmare to raise, I was shocked with grief and the need to rebel from about eight years old.

He put up with it all. He never let me get away with things, everything I did had a consequence, but I was never scared that he'd hit me, and he never drank in front of me. He knows how much I hate drunks.

He is short with praise, but if I earned it, I get it, and that makes it mean a lot more in the long run. He told me when I screwed up and never sugar coated anything. He respects me like an adult, so I respect him.

He's never been a parent to me. He never will be. I didn't like my parents that much. He's been so much more to me over the years, I can't define what he is in a single word.

He's been a protector, a tutor, a mentor, a friend, an enemy, a supporter, a dictator, a jailer, and the only person who ever cared enough to call me not 'Jecht's boy' but just Tidus.

That's why I just call Auron my guardian and let it rest at that.


End file.
